Illidan was not a Hero; A discussion about "the end justifies the means."

[thesentinelblue]

Naaru aren't (well they are basically) perfect. A'dal is a powerful naaru but he is nothing compared to Xe'ra.

[Baneador]

Illidan is an Anti-hero, and Xe'ra is a flying spacial piece of sh*t, i hate her so much, damn wind chime fangirl. Can we kill Xe'ra now Blizzard? pleaseeeeee?

[RyanEX]

grom killing mannoroth broke the blood curse that the legion used to hold the orcish race

Right, it FREED them. It didn't REDEEM them. And this is about Illidan.

[DemonHunter18]

Illidan is an Anti-hero, and Xe'ra is a flying spacial piece of sh*t, i hate her so much, damn wind chime fangirl. Can we kill Xe'ra now Blizzard? pleaseeeeee?

considering that Illidan is in his own body then she probably died because the plan was to get Illidan's soul in her own body. I guess something went wrong and she died or something like that.

[Tzalix]

I don't think of Illidan as a hero or a villain. He is pretty much insane, he's selfish, and he will go to extreme lengths to fulfill his own desires and goals. It just so happens that one of his goals is to beat the Legion and save his home world, which happens to align with our goals as well.

Yeah, things would probably have worked out better if there was some simple communication, but it's a constant theme in WoW that there are miscommunications that leads to conflict. OP mentioned Grom taking down Cenarius, which is another good example of this. Cenarius was convinced the Orcs were still under demon control (before Grom drank the blood of Mannoroth), and Grom did tell him that they were free Orcs, but Cenarius didn't listen. Ergo, conflict and death.

This happens a lot in WoW. Preconceived notions and hatred takes precedence over sitting down and having a chat.

[Kallisto]

Illidan is pretty much the quintessential anti-hero - nothing I've seen thus far in either TBC or Legion has changed this characterization in my view. He is unlikable, his methods are morally dubious (extremely so depending on the source of judgment), but he is ultimately on the side good at least insofar as "good" means the preservation of humanoid life in the universe. Now, if you're talking about Illidan's path to victory as opposed to other possible paths or means of victory, you would have the making of a good debate. I personally believe Illidan is misguided, wracked by the corrupting influence of Fel and perhaps unhinged by the many traumas he has undergone (10,000 years of solitude are not good for any living mind). It may be that he needs to be brought to heel, or at least made to see that his way is not the only way that victory over the Legion can be achieved.

Problem is all other paths to victory we have been shown against the might of the legion is "Do a little bit of damage to them on Azeroth/Outland/Draenor and hope we can rebuild by time they come back and do it again."

Right now Illidan seems to be the only one who even wants to take the fight to the legion while the rest of Azeroth is just content to sit back and do repel attacks and hope for the best. That is a Constantinople siege mentality of later 14th and early 15th centuries which simply put will fail.

His way to victory as shown in his book was going to work sooner. Remember DHs see what is going on which is at any one time countless worlds in multiple realities are under attack at any time, all of which are burning and falling to the Legion's might. While it's shitty that a few thousand may die in Outland at some point you do have to make a decision on what is more important. Few thousand or few billion if you have the power to stop what he and every other DH sees from happening.

By doing nothing those few thousand souls/people in Outland live, until the Legion turn their attention back on Outland fully. Sacrifice those souls and the few billion actually have a chance of living. Especially if Illidan wasn't attacked by us and his plan to take down Argus worked (which again was hinted at being the most probable outcome in Illidan novel) leading to the Eredar leadership being all but wiped out and Sargeras having less of a control over the demons, since even Sargeras needs Lieutenants to run the day to day operations.

[Krigaren]

First of all, Black Temple was merely a setback.

Second, as a few others have pointed out, this whole perspective on Illidan is basically Xera's alone. It's the way she views Illidan, and she's probably either being incredibly pragmatic about the methods used to destroy the Legion, or she's corrupted, herself. Remember, she kinda came at us from no where via the shard we recovered, and for all we know it could be a Legion plant. We don't know for sure that it came from Turalyon or that it didn't end up in the hands of the Legion prior to it crashing onto Azeroth.

The key issue is that we don't have enough information. And given that this is a story that's unfolding as the expansion goes on, it's very probable that all of this could get Shyamalan'ed.

[Lady Dragonheart]

I'm not really a fan of Illidan. I consider him more of a villain than an anti-hero. While the more recent stuff in Legion paints him with a very friendly brush, my recollection of him from WC3 and TBC are much more narrow for his direct actions. In all seriousness, if not for Xera, I would consider him a villain still. Even then, I don't inherently trust Xera, she is so out of place compared to the rest of the story-line of warcraft. Her being a Naaru doesn't bode for how accepting she is of Illidan's faults, the whole Light's Heart quest-line just felt so forced and abnormal.

[Aucald]

Problem is all other paths to victory we have been shown against the might of the legion is "Do a little bit of damage to them on Azeroth/Outland/Draenor and hope we can rebuild by time they come back and do it again."

Right now Illidan seems to be the only one who even wants to take the fight to the legion while the rest of Azeroth is just content to sit back and do repel attacks and hope for the best. That is a Constantinople siege mentality of later 14th and early 15th centuries which simply put will fail.

His way to victory as shown in his book was going to work sooner. Remember DHs see what is going on which is at any one time countless worlds in multiple realities are under attack at any time, all of which are burning and falling to the Legion's might. While it's shitty that a few thousand may die in Outland at some point you do have to make a decision on what is more important. Few thousand or few billion if you have the power to stop what he and every other DH sees from happening.

By doing nothing those few thousand souls/people in Outland live, until the Legion turn their attention back on Outland fully. Sacrifice those souls and the few billion actually have a chance of living. Especially if Illidan wasn't attacked by us and his plan to take down Argus worked (which again was hinted at being the most probable outcome in Illidan novel) leading to the Eredar leadership being all but wiped out and Sargeras having less of a control over the demons, since even Sargeras needs Lieutenants to run the day to day operations.

It's an interesting debate, that is for certain. The current "defending" strategy of trying to safeguard worlds or areas piecemeal is a failing gambit, on that I agree with you. But Illidan's strategy was also halted by (most likely) Xe'ra in the "Illidan" novel because it would have failed if Illidan hadn't been pulled away from Argus when he was, and the entire operation would've been for naught. We also have the Army of the Light that is actively besieging Argus apparently - but has been thus far unable to topple the Legion-Lords and is on the precipice of being pushed back and routed. Illidan's strategy of portal destabilization and world-wide collapse of Legion core worlds was successful in a sneak-raid on Nathreza, but the jig as they say is up insofar as Argus is concerned. Kil'jaeden knew he was there, and no doubt knew what he was up to as well, which was why the Elder Naaru pulled him away when it did.

I think Illidan will be essential to taking the fight to the Legion, but I'm not sold on the idea that he and the Illidari will be successful acting unilaterally. A joint offensive strategy is going to be needed, but first all the prime players will have to be vouchsafed and moved into the right positions.

[Deleted]

Much like Grom, Illidan's actions have no bearing on his minions.

Grom's killing of Mannoroth did not "redeem" the orcs. It freed them to seek redemption. Whether or not they do is up to how you interpret your faction. Likewise Vashj was a villain regardless of what Illidan intended.

The Grom example was just to show the prevalent theme in Warcraft 3, which can be seen in the Grom character arc. He was no hero, not really - he killed Mannoroth just because he refused to accept what the demon was saying. His actions had effects beyond what he envisioned, which is implied by the dialogue towards the end of that cinematic.

Even so, this argument strikes me as weak - so what, Illidan had nothing to do with what Vazruden, Vashj, Teron Gorefiend, the Dragonmaw Clan or any of his other minions did? It seems quite heavily implied that Illidan is the one giving the orders to all these people, if not outright stated. Even if it was true that he'd lost control of all his minions, it'd still bring doubt to what Xera is saying about him being a hero that we just misunderstood - if he had no control over what his minions were doing, he's more an incompetent leader than a hero.

[The5thVegetable]

Illidan is pretty much the quintessential anti-hero - nothing I've seen thus far in either TBC or Legion has changed this characterization in my view. He is unlikable, his methods are morally dubious (extremely so depending on the source of judgment), but he is ultimately on the side good at least insofar as "good" means the preservation of humanoid life in the universe. Now, if you're talking about Illidan's path to victory as opposed to other possible paths or means of victory, you would have the making of a good debate. I personally believe Illidan is misguided, wracked by the corrupting influence of Fel and perhaps unhinged by the many traumas he has undergone (10,000 years of solitude are not good for any living mind). It may be that he needs to be brought to heel, or at least made to see that his way is not the only way that victory over the Legion can be achieved.

Pretty much this!

[Aleksej89]

We got 2 options:
1. Wage war by following some rules that endanger our victory and increase the chance we all die and the universe ends.
2. Wage war by any means possible, hoping that our delectably sinister options will increase our chance for victory.

This has always been a contested topic, with some famous quotes for both sides:
- Honor, young heroes. No matter how dire the battle, never forsake it. (saurfang)
- Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer (Mass Effect)

Honestly both sides make very compelling arguments.
Victory is not guaranteed in either choice, but fighting without restrictions would probably improve our chances of winning.
However we would definitely sacrifice our honor/souls/spirits/morality by employing sinister methods.

Survival versus principles... shameful living versus honorable death...

[Makorus]

Considering he was this close to dooming the world by fucking over Northrend because he followed Kil'Jaedens order because he wanted more power, I wouldn't say that he is an anti-hero, but just stupid.

[Deleted]

Illidan is the kind of person who will take action while everyone else is deciding what to do

yeah lol maybe like this

person 1: We must take action...
person 2: But we can't do it because people will die...
person 1: Maybe you are right but what choice do we have...
person 2: Let me think about it and then I'll come back to you...
person 3: Em guys, where is Illidan?
person 1,2: ...

- - - Updated - - -

considering that Illidan is in his own body then she probably died because the plan was to get Illidan's soul in her own body. I guess something went wrong and she died or something like that.

Xe'ra: my last act to the light

her words literally

[HavokHeart]

I understand the desire to categorize everything... Unfortunately, not everything fits cleanly into the good or bad categories.. not everything is cut and dry. I think Illidan is a kind of anti-hero that makes people love him even more.

[Jastall]

He's supposed to be an anti-hero, and broadly fit that role in WC3.

Then TBC made him an insane villain.

Then Legion retconned it all, and he's now the Goku of Warcraft, the super cool Child of Light and Darkness who's destined to save the universe and have his every flaw and wrongdoings swept under the rug by the narration.

So basically, he was a cool character, made into a lame character, then made into a boring mary sue because Blizzard are bad writers.

[DemonHunter18]

why Goku of all people

he is Superman.

he is not Mary Sue... yet.

[Koryn123]

I think that Illidan is choosing the lesser of two evils, which is the only way things get done. If nobody ever objectively compromised their ethics, things would be bad for everyone. The anti-heroes like Illidan just soak up a lot of the bad to spare the rest from having to do bad things.

You see this "ends justify the means" stuff with a lot of people in WoW.

The Blood Elves compromised their ethics (though really it was just killing animals for nourishment like everyone on Azeroth every day at almost any meal) in order to keep their strength up to fight the Scourge in the wake of Quel'thalas' destruction. If they all acted like today's High Elves and didn't compromise, they would have all died, either while shivering on the floor from mana withdrawals, or meditating thinking the Scourge would be nice and wait for them to finish meditating before coming to slaughter them all.

Meanwhile the High Elves (mainly Vereesa and her Silver Covenant) act all high and mighty for not compromising their ethics (even though they do way worse stuff later and pretend it's moral). I think it's in Lor'themar's short story, it says something like "[The High Elves at Quel'danil] can sleep soundly with the knowledge that they never compromised their ethics, but they can't deny that they benefit from the actions of those who had."

If Illidan didn't sacrifice those magi at Black Rook Hold, everyone would have died. Illidan regretfully made the choice to become a murderer in order to save as many people there as he possibly could.

The Blood Elves made the choice to save themselves and their people. The High Elves who were banished to Quel'lithien were rangers, and thus far better suited to survival in the plagued wilderness, but that wasn't the case for everyone, and those defenders who remained behind to reclaim Quel'thalas wouldn't have had the resources to stay in one spot to protect all the civilians while they sat and meditated or were otherwise indisposed as a result of their pangs from addiction.


There's a difference between sacrificing the lives of those under your command, and wasting them. If their deaths had meaning, like Draenei Vindicators dying to secure a safe retreat for women and children from Shattrath, that's very different from some politician deciding to go to war, and drafting a bunch of bewildered 19-year old farmboys and sending them to almost certain death.

It weighs heavily on the commander who has to sacrifice lives for the greater good (and I don't mean what most villains call the greater good that usually just means good for themselves or their friends). Illidan respected the sacrifices of his magi, and didn't waste the gift they unwillingly gave him.

Sometimes, tough decisions have to be made, and there will always be those who try to shame people for doing what they themselves could not, as the Silver Covenant do pretty much every time they make an appearance.


Orgrimm Doomhammer didn't like the Old Horde's new dishonorable ways, but Draenor was history. There was no way it could sustain them all again now that they were cursed and their world was doomed, with only a small amount of the land still healthy enough to support life. He chose the lesser of two evils (from his point of view, meaning he wanted his people to live, and understandably cared more about them than he did the races of the Alliance) by continuing to wage war against the peoples of Azeroth. Now, he should have considered simply entrenching themselves within Stormwind's former holdings or perhaps a bit more territory beyond that, but I think it says somewhere that he knew that without a common enemy to focus their frustrations on, the clans would collapse into infighting amongst themselves.

Arthas made the only choice available to him, to purge Stratholme (the biggest city in all of northern Lordaeron) to prevent the Scourge from gaining a powerful foothold there, from which they could build their numbers increasingly more vast, and strike out at the rest of the kingdom. If he'd refused to compromise his ethics, as Uther and Jaina wanted to find another way, Stratholme would have become an insurmountable threat far sooner than it did in the lore. We the outside observers can see that Stratholme eventually became a Scourge stronghold anyway, but it was impossible for anyone in the story to have known that purging the city wouldn't have changed anything in the long run.


Some people have to make hard choices for the good of those they care about, whether or not those loved ones appreciate their sacrifice. Illidan, Kael'thas, Arthas, Orgrimm, and many others did what they thought would have a better outcome for their people than any alternative. Illidan didn't want Black Rook Hold to fall and everyone within to be killed by the Legion, Kael'thas didn't want his people to be without the strength to defend themselves and/or flee from the Scourge if necessary, Arthas didn't want the Scourge to swarm out of Stratholme and destroy his people, who he loved (he was crying as he killed the infected people of Stratholme, so he didn't make his choice lightly), and Orgrimm wanted the orcs to live long enough for him to somehow bring them back to their shamanistic roots, or at least have honor and whatnot.

[Allerius]

The way the Xe'ra quests tried to frame everything Illidan did (particularly shoving the idea of him being a perfect hero down your throat) was cringy and poorly executed. I'll give you that. However, what do you really expect from WoW? If you want engaging and coherent lore, WoW really isn't the game you're looking for. It makes a lot more sense to critique the story on WoW's standards and examine the main ideas.

First of all, the retconning was necessary. Before Wotlk, WoW barely even tried to create a story. Everything was really just an excuse to kill stuff and Illidan's character was very poorly handled. He just went crazy after losing a battle and that's it. Is that really an engaging story that's worth preserving? This is a retcon that I don't have a problem with. Miscommunication and misunderstanding are actually pretty good mechanisms to create tragedy. A good example would be WW1. I'm sure some explanation of how the legion was stifling communication between Naruu or something could address the concerns. Magical telecommunications jamming between worlds, why not?

Now let's look at the main idea of legion's Illidan. I think you're wrong when you say that it deviates from the theme of going too far. The question of is he actually going too far needs to be answered. Depending on perspective, different valid conclusions can be reached. You can look at his actions from a "becoming as bad as the enemy" perspective and that by losing his honor he has gone too far. Or, you could assess that his actions are necessary to save the world and when weighed with the consequence of losing all life, what Illidan has done to prevent it really isn't so bad. What's actually interesting is that these are both valid points of view and that different people can view Illidan as a villian or an anti-hero and both have a solid argument is actually good storytelling. Of course X'era butchers this by forcing the hero perspective, but imagine that the conclusion on Illidan's character is left to the player.

Considering that Illidan is a very popular character that wasn't done justice (compare what Arthas got in terms of story to Illidan) and I would say the whole thing is actually pretty good storytelling for WoW standards.

[Koryn123]

Considering he was this close to dooming the world by fucking over Northrend because he followed Kil'Jaedens order because he wanted more power, I wouldn't say that he is an anti-hero, but just stupid.

Not because he wanted more power. It was because he wanted more time, time to pursue his goal of destroying the Legion once and for all. He had to work very hard to prevent Kil'jaeden from seeing Illidan's true mission when Kil'jaeden probed his mind in TFT, so he wasn't a loyal pet, as he tried to pretend he was.

And Illidan had no qualms about melting the polar ice caps to drown Northrend (or just Icecrown, I dunno), because Scourge, and nobody likes them. He wasn't an environmentalist, and disliked the druidic path that required patience and lame stuff like that, so he had little mind for the consequences of his action, and didn't see why Malfurion wanted to stop him.